Winter

With the snap of a finger the brisk but fresh fall evenings flip over to the quiet dark winter nights I’ve grown used to. The ice and snow that build up on the windowsills reveal a stillness that only exists in those first days; everyone is taking a collective breath before digging into a new routine. The normalcy built up over the summer is disrupted by needing to warm up your car, shovel the walk, and muster the strength to get out of a nice warm bed. Favourite new clothes you’ve collected become temporarily obsolete. Earlier nights and later mornings always attempt to disrupt the inner balance. Winters here always seem to suck, things get harder physically and mentally.

The air in Saskatchewan winters is often filled with two things: blistering cold and people talking about the blistering cold. Everyone sitting behind a countertop at their place of work engages in the same conversation for 8 hours of their day. We all talk about the weather. We call it small talk, but hidden somewhere in the boring pleasantries there is a recognition. The majority of us have to accommodate new things into our routine every year. Changes that range from an increased focus on our mental health to simply getting up a bit earlier to drive through the ice and snow, and it all comes from the winter. The simplicity of a quick “oh it’s windy out tonight” just makes it all a bit easier, because everyone does it together in their own way.

There’s something about people from Saskatchewan: you can find us everywhere. There’s something special about where we live that sticks with us, and if you look you can find it wherever you go. I think its the winter, it leaves it marks. In the darkest, longest, and coldest nights we all are forced to find what’s important to us. The winters here are a test, but not the kind that you pass or fail; the winter here is more like an aptitude test. The snow tells you what you have, what you want, and what you need.

After the long wait is over you start to wake up a little later. You take that cool outfit out from the back of your closet because it’s finally warm enough to wear it again. The sun starts to come up earlier and it fills you with a resolve. The winter reveals and the summer gives you an opportunity to act. The world around us starts to get louder, the air filled with the collective silent shouts of determination.  

also the roads suck